Making Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at Home
Mar. 3rd, 2022 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerLast week ago I decided to try making Chicago style deep dish pizza at home. I bought a pair of pre-made pizza crusts at Trader Joe's and topped them myself. How did it turn out? Check this results picture and decide for yourself....
...Okay, you can't taste it through the screen, but I think you can see it looks pretty good— and very much like a Chicago pie. It tasted pretty good, too. It was better than the frozen Gino's East deep dish pizza I've bought numerous times since local Safeways started carrying it almost 2 years ago.
How did I make it? As I said above, I started with a premade crust and topped it myself.
First I brushed the crust with olive oil. Then I laid down a thick layer of mozzarella cheese. Okay, the mozzarella cheese was store-bought, too. I'm not into making my own cheese! Then I put on a good layer of pepperoni— okay, that was store-bought, too; I don't slaughter or cure my own meat 🙄— and, finally, a layer of marinara sauce. The marinara sauce was homemade! I'd made it the night before. ...No, I didn't grow the tomatoes. I used canned tomatoes. 🤣 But I made the sauce myself from base ingredients, including the crushed garlic I sauteed to start it.
Putting the sauce on top was key to getting the look— and frankly the taste— of authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. I could have gone a little heavier with the sauce I spooned on. As you can see in the picture it doesn't quite cover the pie from rim to rim. I was worried about it spilling over when cooked. It didn't, because the cheese melted down.
What really put this pizza over the top of anything frozen I've tried was that sauce. Its flavor was spot-on. Not just for pizza in general but especially for Chicago pizza. The marinara I made is mostly tomato (as it should be). And it's high quality. One of the problems I've found with frozen pizzas is that their tomato sauces are all terrible. Even Gino's East, which is otherwise the best frozen pizza I've found, has a sauce that's simultaneously overly sweet and harshly acidic. 🤢
...Okay, you can't taste it through the screen, but I think you can see it looks pretty good— and very much like a Chicago pie. It tasted pretty good, too. It was better than the frozen Gino's East deep dish pizza I've bought numerous times since local Safeways started carrying it almost 2 years ago.
How did I make it? As I said above, I started with a premade crust and topped it myself.
First I brushed the crust with olive oil. Then I laid down a thick layer of mozzarella cheese. Okay, the mozzarella cheese was store-bought, too. I'm not into making my own cheese! Then I put on a good layer of pepperoni— okay, that was store-bought, too; I don't slaughter or cure my own meat 🙄— and, finally, a layer of marinara sauce. The marinara sauce was homemade! I'd made it the night before. ...No, I didn't grow the tomatoes. I used canned tomatoes. 🤣 But I made the sauce myself from base ingredients, including the crushed garlic I sauteed to start it.
Putting the sauce on top was key to getting the look— and frankly the taste— of authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. I could have gone a little heavier with the sauce I spooned on. As you can see in the picture it doesn't quite cover the pie from rim to rim. I was worried about it spilling over when cooked. It didn't, because the cheese melted down.
What really put this pizza over the top of anything frozen I've tried was that sauce. Its flavor was spot-on. Not just for pizza in general but especially for Chicago pizza. The marinara I made is mostly tomato (as it should be). And it's high quality. One of the problems I've found with frozen pizzas is that their tomato sauces are all terrible. Even Gino's East, which is otherwise the best frozen pizza I've found, has a sauce that's simultaneously overly sweet and harshly acidic. 🤢
